31 weeks

31 whole weeks in the books! And to my family who have been requesting it.... here's the 31 week belly pic. Pardon the grainy-nighttime high-ISO-no flash-"I was about to get ready for bed and remembered I hadn't taken my weekly picture"- bad hair shot.

She's grown (and therefore so have I) so much in the past few weeks. Just 7 weeks ago I looked like this. Anywho. On with the point of the post- the 3rd trimester emotion-coaster.

A note to those who have yet to experience it....you know you're near the end when you start to get teary-eyed in aisle 9 because you can't decide which baby wash to purchase for your unborn kid.

Yeah, that just happened.

We made a trip to Babies r' Us because we realized that other than a bed and a car seat we have nothing to care for our child with. Things like diapers, wipes, bottles, the stroller-  you know things you actually need.

We get to the aisle where they have all the 8 million baby washes, shampoos, lotions, diaper rash creams and I just stood there, staring. It sounds dumb, but I had 1 particular type of diaper rash cream I wanted to get cause I read it was the best and my kid needs the best diaper rash cream. Well our Babies r' Us apparently didn't have it and I freaked. There was no backup cream, no plan B, so I just stood there eyeballing the 20 other brands of butt cream that weren't the one I wanted like they were poison. I hadn't researched these foreign brands, therefore they were all deemed unsuitable.

My loving husband suggested we just hold off on the baby butt cream and move on to the baby wash. He deserves an award for keeping me from having a meltdown, surely he was wondering what psycho-emotional being had taken over his wife's body.

Again, we stood there, Daniel suggesting different brands and me looking at him like he was speaking German. I just kept picturing us giving our baby a bath and her having some insane reaction to the wash and then hating us the rest of her little kid life, as if  we weren't already going to get the tween/teen hate your parents phase, I couldn't have her mad at me as a toddler.

All I could get out is "Um, I don't know...is it unscented? is it all natural? Is it the super-mega-gentle-sensitive kind?" for every brand he suggested. He ended up having to calmly remind me that should Brooklyn have a reaction to the baby soap we will just go buy a different kind. Novel idea, right? So he just grabbed one put it in the basket, declared it a win and ushered me to the next aisle praying that there were no items on aisle 10 that would set me off.

And the nut-job of the week award goes to....yours truly.

Just thought I'd let you into that little moment of crazy with me.

In other news, I'll be posting another project for the nursery as well as a little home made art project for our living room walls (that have been empty for nearly 2 years) later this week. Here's to a meltdown-free week.

Gonna party like it's my birfday!

Cause it is!

While the initial thought of turning 30 and having to celebrate like a preschooler was a little off-putting, (cranberry juice spritzer anyone??) I have decided to look past the unopened champagne bottles to what exciting, difficult, and interesting nuggets getting to 30 has brought. So here's a list of 30 lessons I've learned along the way.

1.} I am blessed beyond what I deserve.

2.} Being able to drink more than the guy you are trying to impress does not, in fact, impress him.

3.} Any guy you think would be impressed by you drinking more than him is the first sign you are looking for the wrong kinda dude.

4.} God puts people in your life at certain times for a reason.

5.}  High school seems like the end-all be-all of life until you leave, then you realize it was on the 2nd rung on the 20 foot ladder of life's important moments.

6.} Botox can be your friend when used in moderation, just don't go all Heidi from "The Hills."

7.} Doing something purely because that's what everyone does is dumb. You will not have fun and people will wish they never invited you. Lots of people camp in Oregon, it's beautiful and the weather is cool, and I'm glad they enjoy mother nature. I camp too. In a Hilton. With a glass of wine. I will enjoy Oregon from my car window, stopping to take pics every once and a while.
 
8.} Having a tiny human growing inside your tummy is the scariest and coolest thing all at the same time.

9.} Liking the people you work with can make a world of difference at the office. I have been lucky to work with some amazing people.

10.} Traveling France and Italy with the man of your dreams is as fun and romantic as it sounds.

11.} I wish Dave Ramsey was around when I was in high school. If you get a chance, take his FPU course even if you think don't "need" it, it's a game changer.

12.} Marry someone who makes you laugh everyday. I can't remember the last time a day passed without laughter- and that. is. awesome.

13.} Just because an item is on Air Force One does not mean that it is indestructible.

14.} Never make decisions based on what others are doing, do what's right for you!

15.} That über tan you had in high school that you spent years fake baking to keep will come back to bite you in the arse.

16.} Having a loving family, who enjoys each others company, and prays for one another is a hard thing to come by. Having that in your in-laws family and your family is even harder. I hit the jackpot.

17.} If you haven't worn it in over a year- give it away. Someone else will love that dress, and no you won't wear it again.

18.} Lying to your parents is wrong. Unless you are holding a puppy trying to "explain"  to them where it came from so you can keep it. In this particular instance I say lie away. ;)

19.} At no point should dish soap be substituted for dishwasher detergent. Unless a foam party is what you were going for.

20.} Shorts with anything less than a 6 inch inseam do become ridiculously inappropriate and it happens earlier than you'd think.

21.} Where and how you spend your money is where your heart is. I apparently love my house, food and university foundations.

22.} As a Christian you are forgiven by the Creator, so don't beat yourself up about things from your past. Your sins are thrown as far as the east is from the west so take comfort and walk in freedom!

23.}Your parents actually do know a thing or 2 about life. Who woulda thunk?!?

24.} Turning out to be like your parents isn't all that bad either. Unless your parents are Casey Anthony or Adolf Hitler- in which case I suggest you just do the opposite of whatever they do.(Is that bad that I put her in the same category as Hitler? I couldn't think of any coo-coo-ca-choo chick villains)

25.}Gabby Gossiping about someone not only doesn't help the situation (or the person your gabbing about) but often makes you look like a big ole jerk face. (I still have to remind myself of this one weekly)

26.} Pray for things you need help with, hope for, care about, need guidance on but don't forget to offer prayers of thanksgiving, prayers of joy, prayers of gratitude and prayers of humility too. Often times I get greedy.

27.} Unless you are single, trips to places like Hawaii and Jamaica are not near as fun when your spouse is not there.

28.} Spazzing out about things that you can't change is a waste of energy.

29.} Not doing anything but yet complaining about things you can change is a waste of an opportunity.

30.} Knowing that you have not only married the love of your life and best friend but you also get to have a family together, is the single best feeling in the world.

Now I'm gonna go find some cake......

Birthdays + registry = anxiety attack

So my birthday is less that a month away and I have learned an interesting fact.

When you are pregnant and your birthday falls during your pregnancy, people tend to want to purchase you maternity clothes or things for the baby. Family, friends, spouses all flip to baby mode.

Now don't get me wrong, while I appreciate the gesture as baby items and preggo clothes are both things that I'll need, it's not exactly what I had in mind as a birthday present. Buying clothes with giant stretchy waistbands doesn't exactly make a gal (one who's turning 30, mind you) feel like she's having birthday fun if you know what I mean. And buying the baby things doesn't count as a birthday gift either. That's like me showing up at your birthday party with a gift for your husband, but I let you unwrap it. Enjoy that circular saw, Susan.

This little nugget will get more than it needs and then some I'm sure, thanks to it's wonderful grandparents (both sets enjoy shopping for their grandchildren like the world is ending tomorrow) and shopaholic mom (guilty!). And I will brave the strap on foam  pregnant belly in the fitting rooms at Motherhood after I get brave enough to throw my scale out the bathroom window. I've learned that just because I'm pregnant doesn't mean my self consciousness about my body just flew out the window.

So, for those of you about to shop for a pregnant lady's birthday - remember the rest of the woman's life will revolve around the kid she's carrying so try to keep her birthday just that. Hers. :)

Also, on a totally unrelated note, I logged on to the  Toys r' Us website thinking I was going to attempt to slowly start a registry - really more as a checklist for what we need to get, and 20 minutes later shut the laptop freaked out and overwhelmed. I thought "Oh I'll just put diapers, cream, pacifier, baby wipes a few small things on there and then tackle feeding supplies, bath stuff etc. each on a different day so I'm not overwhelmed." Wrong!

It's like a wedding registry on steroids! Except with a wedding registry you may have 200 brands and styles of dinner plates to choose from but you simply choose the prettiest one. Easy enough. On the website I started with what I figured was the easiest, diapers.

Bad idea.

Disposable or cloth? Different brands, different sizes, different age groups different weight ranges. How do I know which one is the best? What if I get 1 million newborn diapers and I have a 12 pound baby? (Which sadly is somewhat possible since my hubby was a 10 pounder - Lord, have mercy on me!) See with baby stuff you throw how it looks out the window and question #1 becomes how safe is it/ which is the best one? The answer to that, my friends, is I have no friggin' clue! So I shut the computer after blankly staring at the 500+ different kinds of diapers and turned on the food network. :)

So far my kid will be naked. :)

The Challenge results.....

Drum roll please................

We saved 1 billion dollars!!

Just kidding.

We saved a lot though.

More than I thought we were capable of.

I am proud to announce that we only ate out once and it was because we were waiting to get something installed on Daniel's car (a Christmas gift we finally got around to doing) and it took longer than expected so our total eating out money spent for the month of March = $5! Yea for Subway! On average (yes we know our average expenses on everything because we are crazy excel junkies),we drop around $300 a month eating out  so we saved $295 bucks!!

Shocker alert....I didn't buy a single item of clothing, or jewelry so that budget went down 100% this month! Go me!

We did treat ourselves to a few Redbox rentals so instead of the $22.50 ($90 for the month) we usually spend at the Sunday matinee it was $6 in rentals plus a $5.00 for oreos for the whole month! :) That's $79 bucks in the house savings piggy bank!

I figured with eating out less we'd surely run out of our "envelope money" for groceries like halfway through the month, but surprisingly we didn't! We used what we had and I was more conscious about what I purchased at the store. I have a tendency to buy lots of fruits and veggies each trip and with only 2 of us, I end up throwing a bunch away because we can't eat it all fast enough. So much less food wasted this month - saving cash and our planet! (can you tell I'm turning into an Oregonian? haha!)

We've realized that there is a happy medium between the extreme saving like this month and the extreme free-for-all like previous months. Daniel is excited to get to eat lunches out again but recognizes that bringing lunch a few days a week goes a long way. I have learned that it's ok to spend money on good quality additions to my wardrobe but that I don't need to have something new every single week.

At this point in our lives, saving a little extra for a home and hopefully one of these days, a little one while staying as debt free as possible sounds way more fun than any designer bag, or fancy meal out I could ever imagine.

Now to just try not to go hog wild this month.....

P.S. The husband is back home in OKC for the weekend so you know what that means.....the garage is free for projects! Aaaaaaand I'm dog-sitting for a friend so I can all but guarantee you there will be a few posts next week about the pandemonium that is about to ensue. 

Week 1 gone wild

Oh my goodness it's not even fair!


So we started out our month of living on only what we need just great...for about 1 day. I hopped on gilt.com (bad idea #1) just to "see" what designers they had  featured. And there it was in all it's glory....Kenneth Jay Lane jewelry, my fave!!!

Ok, who called the people at Gilt and told them to tempt me with beautiful bracelets, earrings, and fun necklaces???

Who wouldn't want one of these for over half off retail?!?!

But I was good and said "NO pretty jewelry! I do NOT neeeeeeed you on my ears to make me feel trendy and cute... but if you'd just come back to this site in exactly 1 month I'll be sure you get a great home."


Adrienne: 1, temptation of buying things I don't need : 0


Then came my mid-week saving grace in the form of a 11x13 in. pan filled with homemade Milky Way bars! My co-workers Melissa and Karen (and Melvin!) didn't want me to go without my afternoon Milky Way for an entire month so they made me what looks like a lifetime supply. I have no idea where they got the recipe but they taste goooood!

Friday we went to the Goo Goo Dolls concert (tickets I'd bought back in January) they played at a Casino about 25 minutes from our house. It was neat because the venue only seated 1,700 so every seat was a great seat. I will admit after the concert ended we each put a dollar in the slot machine on our way to the car. I'm the dummy that won $10 and let it ride (bad idea #2) and lost it....so Friday we spent $2.

So far this week I'd say we've done well! We haven't eaten out, I've resisted the urge to shop online, and we are foregoing our weekly post-church Sunday movie trip (which normally runs us $22.50 after popcorn and soda!) for a $1 Redbox rental and taking in some WOU baseball.

March Madness

If you clicked on this post expecting to read about college basketball you are sadly in for a disappointment. Although if you give my husband a call he will gladly talk "bracketology" with you for days. He was the kid on the bus with the sports page breaking down records, scores and stats the day after OU basketball games and that's one of the many reasons I love him!

No, unfortunately this March Madness has to do with the month of March and my lack of mental sanity. We have been saving our pennies to hopefully have a nice down payment for a Casa de Hare sometime in the next year and we've been doing well I suppose, but I got this half baked idea and because my husband was coerced loves me, he's agreed to go along with it. 

Here's the plan: For the month of March we only spend money on things we need. 

Shocking, right?!? (this is how I suckered got him on the wagon). See it sounds stone age simple until you begin to discover that "need" to you and "need" to him are worlds apart. See conversation below:

Me: "Hey let's see how many dollars we can save in March by only getting what we need- no extras."

Him: "Ok, so like no movie Sunday, no random internet lunch shopping"

Me: "Right! We'll have lunch at home or bring it to work, only dry clean the things that need to be dry cleaned, (I like to take some of my tops to the cleaners because they look prettier when the cleaners do them!) no free for all shopping at the grocery store just because it looks good. We get what we need, the end."

Him: "Wait, did you just say lunch at home or bring it to work??"

Me: "Yep."

Him: "Um, I'm not sure that's such a good idea."

Me: "well, you already said ok. C'mon it'll be fun!"

Him:(shakes head and looks at me like I'm a nutjob)

I'm going hardcore on this thing, people. It may very well be the worst month of my life but there are folks all over the place that live this way every month not because they choose to but because the have to. 

I'm excited to see how much we can save by only living with what we need. So for me that means my once a week internet purchase, my occasional mid-afternoon candy bar & Diet Dr. Pepper run with the girls at work, and my gym membership that I never use, are being put on hiatus for one month. I'm excited to cook more and get creative and bring my own snacks to work, and dust off my yoga mat. 

Not sure how I'll replace the shopping thing, but we'll take that one day at a time. 

I think our little family can use a reality check of the difference between needing something and wanting something. 

Be prepared for a "what was I thinking??" post after the first week! Wish us luck! 

If only I were...

I often wonder why people are always wishing they were the opposite of themselves. It's probably because I'm always wishing I was more (fill in the blank with everything I'm not). I have stick straight hair and have always been envious of all my friends with curls, but it seems that many of my curly-cued friends are always trying the latest way to get their hair straight. Crazy eh?

Aside from physical characteristics, I've always wished I was more of a thinker. A deep philosophical, literary, political, art savvy, thinker. I suppose it's because a good hunk of my job requires hob-knobbing with board members, donors, and administrators who are all light years smarter than I am. I'm thoroughly convinced that several folks I've met at work events have walked away from the conversation thinking that I have a mental disability. 

I'm not a "fake it til ya make it" kind of gal and sadly will never be a modern day Socrates. In fact I'm quite the opposite.

I am the girl who walks through and art museum and wonders how the people she's walking past for the 5th time can stare at a painting that long. It's pretty, I appreciate it, and now I move on.

Books have to grab me... It can't take 5 chapters to get interesting - I give it 2 chapters to keep my attention. And the only books I'll read are funny books (Chelsea Handler-ish) or President's memoirs. (do magazines count??)    

When I go wine tasting, there's no swirling and tasting "a crisp fruity bouquet with hints of cinnamon" I take a sip and it's either "awful, ehh, good, or I'll take 2 bottles please" 

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy art, wine and books. Just because I don't stare at a painting for 10 minutes to let it speak to me doesn't mean that I don't appreciate it - I just appreciate it differently.

The best part is that the things I am fascinated by and often blurt out at inappropriate moments are the most random (and often mundane) things.

I like pondering random things like the pros and cons of teleportation, who the first haircolor guinea pig was (and if  all her hair burned off), who's dumb idea it was for men of a certain social status to wear hideous powdered wigs,  how someone was smart enough to figure out that you can film something and send it through a series of wires and a picture would pop up on your screen, if Oprah and Ellen got in a fight who would win, and if there were still dowry's and arranged marriages how much would it cost my parents to have gotten George Clooney to marry me.

I mean who wouldn't wanna be at a cocktail party with me?? Lesson for the day: don't try to be someone you aren't for the sake of fitting in, you'll be surprised at how many people like you just the way you are!

Happy Friday!

Day 24: Lessons

Day 24-Something you've learned

I've learned that your "gut feelings" are gut feelings for a reason. You know that weird feeling you got before trying to pass off a fake id to get into a bar when you were underage? That mix of queasy-slash-adrenaline? That's your better sense of judgement telling you to turn around and get the h-e-double-hockey-sticks out. Walk away before you get caught, get drunk and make a fool of yourself, or heaven forbid get behind the wheel and possibly end up in jail.  

Or when you were at school watching as some kid in your grade got picked on, and every bone in your body was screaming for you to run over and stand up for the poor girl, but you didn't because you didn't want to get made fun of too?? 

I've learned that God gives us those senses and feelings because it's just too easy to make the wrong decision. Even with the "gut feelings" our desire to fit in or be popular is so strong that we toss all sense of what's right out the window. Sadly, we spend half our time trying to dress a certain way or drink a certain drink, you know, because that's what Ke$ha does and she's famous.

I've learned that when I die- how I dress, where I went for dinner, or which cool bar I got in to isn't what I'm going to have to answer for. None of that matters. I'm going to have to answer for why I didn't stand up for a kid who was being picked on. 

Don't ignore those gut feelings.....